He said clearance of 40 lakh cheques totalling around Rs 22,000 crore would be affected.The strike covers employees and officers in all public sector banks, including State Bank of India, all old-generation private banks, foreign banks, regional rural banks and cooperative banks.

Venkatachalam said the shutdown comes after all attempts to find a solution to the demands raised by the unions yielded no results.

The conciliation meeting before the Chief Labour Commissioner on February 21, failed to break the deadlock as the bank management body Indian Banks Association (IBA) did not agree to the union demands.

Most state-run banks have informed customers that functioning of branches and offices would be hit if the strike was observed on Tuesday.

Top private lenders ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are not part of the union and would continue to function normally but cheque clearances would not take place.

Besides, cash transactions would also be hit and the ATMs are likely to be emptied early during the day. “ATM operations are yet to normalize after the demonetization of high value notes. It seems people have resigned to the situation of less cash,” Venkatachalam added.